I have mixed feelings after reading Blizzard's post.
One of the reasons I quit MMOs was the time investment required to access content of interest. I believe technology has progressed to a point where game developers are obliged to devise a less hamfisted method of restricting content than the level "treadmill" and "grinding" for gold. A game should be fun; it shouldn't feel like work.
The issue of progression is solved handily by traditional RPGs: You can't progress the story until you defeat a certain boss or complete a certain quest. There are no other player-controlled characters in the game (with the possible exception of action RPGs with co-op gameplay like Secret of Mana); the game takes place in a static world.
A dynamic and persistent world requires more complex methods of restricting content and motivating players to continue playing. In a standard RPG, the gameplay experience and story are (ideally) the two strongest forces motivating the player to complete the game. A great development team (Atlus comes to mind) can create a story and experience that immerses the player in the game. Immersion will never achieve the same pinnacle in a MMORPG. The ceiling (for immersion) is simply set much lower. Even if no one's selling gold, there'll still be Night Elves named Chuknoris dancing on mailboxes in their underwear or raid leaders spouting acronyms and World of SpreadsheetCraft terminology in high-level instances.
One of the reasons I quit MMOs was because the "time-to-fun" ratio was, for me, much lower than other genres. I can either play ten games of Tetris on my DS or I could grind a single level in World of WarCraft. Understanding that the level is "permanent" whereas the Tetris games are temporary, stacking blocks is still more fun than watching my character's backend for 10 minutes while running from point A to B for a fetch quest.
I think Blizzard needs to review the following:
- Wealthy people will always have advantages over the poor. It's as simple as that. It's a principle that will find its way into any human endeavor.
- Repetition leads to boredom. Killing 30 wolves in a snow area to get 3 item drops for a quest is not fun--especially not when you're doing it for the fifth time for your fifth character.
- People play games to have fun. If they can pay a few dollars on in-game gold to skip tedious repetition and unlock content or items in-game, then many players will--and the gold sellers will be ready.
- Restrictions based on in-game currency encourage the buying and selling of said virtual currency. Put another way: People aren't going to grind for 8 hours to earn the gold to purchase an epic mount when they can just pay a gold seller a few bucks and skip the monotony.
When I quit WoW in 2007, I didn't intend to stay away from the MMORPG genre for the rest of my life. I'm waiting for developers to deliver an experience as fun as games like Team Fortress 2 but in a persistent world. I want combat that's interesting. I want a story that's entertaining. I want to spend more time playing and less time running. I want quests that break out of the "Kill X number of Y creature to obtain Z number of item drops" or "Escort incredibly daft NPC from point A to point B" or, worse yet, "Take item A to NPC at location B." Are my expectations high? Yes, they are. But the developer's expectations are pretty high, too, if they expect to get $15 a month from each player.
It's time for MMOs to advance. Everquest came out in 1999. World of WarCraft came out in 2004. Why are we still running the level treadmill, grinding for gold, and running fetch quests?
To be fair, I haven't played WoW in 2 years and I haven't played every MMO to come out in the last few years. I recognize that some games do better than others when it comes to improving on the MMORPG model. Guild Wars allows instant travel between points already visited. Champions Online includes Travel abilities that allow for travel much faster than running. City of Heroes included a "sidekick" system that allowed players of varying levels to play together. Dark Age of Camelot (and, based on what I've read, Warhammer Online) featured player-versus-player that played more like an actual war and less like a game of touch football with orcs and elves.
I don't want this to sound like a slam against Blizzard or World of Warcraft. There's only so much you can do to update a 5-year old game. There are good reasons why World of Warcraft has been wildly successful. But I think a lot of "core" gamers are wondering when "the Next Big Thing" in MMORPGs will come along.
In the meantime, given the limitations and inherent flaws of the WoW framework, I think Blizzard would be better served by positioning the company to benefit from virtual gold sales than suffer because of it.
In a perfect world, technology and design would motivate every player to experience every step from rolling a new character to buying an epic flying mount with lasers at level 85. But it's an imperfect virtual world and players can either live with those imperfections or go play something else.
